


Profit Margins

by FHC_Lynn



Series: Broken Windows [35]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 03:53:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14127501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FHC_Lynn/pseuds/FHC_Lynn
Summary: Swindle is just in it for the free goods.





	Profit Margins

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt (and my notes fail to say from where, oops): Swindle/Scavenger - worth

His palms itched.

Such an odd phrase. He understood it as a feedback in a neurological synapse in response to a tingling in the finer sensory equipment of the dermal plating of organics. Not a Cybertronian sensation at all. At the most basic level, Cybertronian systems simply messaged the myelocranial exchange. In turn, the exchange interpreted the signal and passed that information higher up to the cerebral cortex. And there, along the high fidelity spark connection, a mech decided how to feel about it and what to do.

Primus knew Hook explained it often enough, Swindle thought he could recite the rusted Struts-Hoses-Actuators song from memory. Mech sang while he worked. Who _did_ that?

"Swindle? I really appreciate you coming down here and keeping me company. I know you're a very busy mech--"

So his palms itched, and Swindle decided he had been on this infested planet too long. Crouched on Scavenger's canopy while the later methodically dug through the mud, he felt the vibrations of the mech's every move. That eased the itch some, and Swindle hardly knew why. A slow rhythm of dumping, swinging, scraping, and swinging again that could put a mech to sleep. Scavenger chatted, too. He offered any and every thought in his head, and Swindle debated paying the mech to stop. Except he would never part with the credit. Scavenger might be the most irritating of flunkies, but his own insecurities made him the cheapest Swindle remembered having.

"Aw, mech, but you're workin' so hard for me down here. It's the _least_ I can pay you back with--"

His palms itched and rubbing them across his thighs did nothing to dispel the sensation. Every time they itched now, he saw the brightening of Scavenger's optics. He saw the mech straighten from a slouch Swindle had thought to be part of his build. Swindle's palms itched every time Scavenger dug something up, because Swindle could sell _anything_ and Scavenger always gave those found things to him now.

Swindle couldn't calculate the worth of these interactions because time and words had no meaning but the credit rate he assigned them. Scavenger's finds sometimes had no value at all, but Swindle had a merchant's pride. And certainly the skill.

Free labor, then, became priceless and a thing to hold jealously close. The other Constructicons watched Swindle and his itchy palms pet their bond partner closely, but they said nothing when Swindle swung by their workshop. Nor when he took Scavenger to a private table in the mess. He thought they laughed at him.

With time and familiarity and a growing sense of _debt_ , Swindle put his hands to Scavenger's body more often to ease that itch. And in the bright, bright reflection of the mech's optics, Swindle felt rich again.


End file.
